Name: Mt. Emei & Monastery Culture 2 Days Tour | Sichuan
Brand: Kodama Travel
Availability: InStock

Overview

Mount Emei is a vast protected natural reserve, and is famous for its ‘sea of clouds’ at the mountain top. This tour will introduce you to its geological wonders and biodiversity (such as its wild monkey troops) and will help you understand the importance of preserving such mountains for regional ecological balance. We’ll have lunch at a village-owned restaurant, ensuring that tourism revenue flows directly to local households and supporting the economic development of the rural community that coexists with the sacred mountain. Mt. Emei is also significant in Buddhist culture - it is one of the four sacred Buddhist Mountains - and you’ll see various Buddhist temples on the mountain. We will stay overnight in the monastery and enjoy a vegetarian meal. In doing so, we directly support the maintenance of the temples and the monastic community's practice, providing an economic foundation for the continuation of this living cultural institution. We will use the eco-friendly shuttle buses, thus minimising the tour's environmental impact.

This itinerary is customisable. Let us know at checkout if and how you'd like to personalise the itinerary.

What you will be doing

Day 1: Mt Emei

Our guide will greet you at your hotel lobby in Chengdu, and we will drive for 2.5 hrs to Mt. Emei. Upon arrival, we will take the shuttle bus up to Wan Nian temple parking lot, and walk or use the cable car (optional) up to the Wan Nian temple. We will spend another two hours hiking down to Baoguo Temple. We could see the temples, river, pavilions, lakes, and monkeys (maybe). We’ll then enjoy lunch at a restaurant in the village, including local delicacies like the bamboo shoot. The monastery closes to the public at 5 p.m., so you will have an exclusive, quiet & peaceful experience without crowds. We’ll have a vegetarian dinner inside the monastery, and then your guide will introduce one of the senior monks to share his Buddhist knowledge with you. After visiting the temple, you will have free time for the rest of the evening. We’ll stay overnight at this simple and clean monastery.

Day 2: Kunfu class and Golden Summit

We’ll start the day early at 6:30 am. The monks will begin to chant around 6:00 - 7:00 a.m. We highly recommend that you get up a bit early to join them. Then it’s time for Kung Fu class with our famous Kung Fu master outside the temple. After breakfast, we’ll take the tourist shuttle to the Leidongping parking lot (2,430m, about a 1.5-hour bus ride), then hike for 30 minutes to take the cable car up to Golden Summit. On the way, you may encounter naughty wild monkeys. After lunch, take the cable car and bus all the way down to the Wannian parking lot, and we can drop you back at the hotel in Chengdu.